During the pandemic, I found myself working as a substitute teacher for a season at a local Christian school, and I must admit I loved it! I had a knack for it. I genuinely cared for those students and still follow many on social media. During those few years, I stumbled onto a surprisingly affective phrase that I would employ on students who were chitter-chattering with their neighbors. Anytime I had to call out a distracted student, I would say:
“Nose forward, knees forward.”
Instantly, and without fail, the student would heed the instruction, shift their posture, and be wholly focused on me or whatever was demanding their attention at the front of the room.
In the Vol. 21 No. 28 – August 2, 1962 edition of The California Southern Baptist, there was an article written by then editor, Floyd Looney entitled, “LET US LOOK AT THE PAST, OBSERVE THE PRESENT, AND CONTEMPLATE THE FUTURE.” Here Looney himself harkens back to another decade, quoting Dr. Norman Cox, the then Executive Secretary of the Historical Commission of the SBC wherein Cox opened a meeting with these words:
“Baptists cannot understand their present, nor contemplate their future unless they have a clear knowledge of their past.”
Looney goes on to reflect upon several significant accomplishments for Californians.
The Past
- The organization of the First (then Northern) Baptist Church of San Francisco in 1849 (only 1 year after California was ceded to the US by Mexico).
- The activation of Southern Baptists in 1850 when a few notable works began in the Bay Area. This appeared to be the beginning of a Kingdom-focused partnership between Northern (now American) Baptists and Southern Baptists.
- Suddenly, a pause in SBC work took hold in the West for nearly a century (yes! 100 years!) in large part because of certain political awkwardnesses, distracting us and leaving the mission fields of California ripe for Northern Baptists.
- By 1945, with 96 years of toil, Northern Baptists had accumulated 289 churches across the state. 5 years earlier, in 1940, California Southern Baptist’s relaunched themselves with 13 churches in a state whose population toppled 7 million people, and the biggest struggles were a lack of leadership.
- Within 20 short years – when Looney penned this reflective piece – Gospel-focused leaders in CSBC life not only grew to a whopping 767 churches (with an additional 137 missions), but this collective of leaders now boasted a college (now California Baptist University), established The Baptist Foundation, and the state convention was instrumental in starting and handing off Golden Gate Seminary (now Gateway) to SBC.
Oh, what a mighty work was accomplished by less than 1000 participating and engaged churches in only 20 years! I, myself, have been in ministry for much longer than that and I am wondering if my generation has been focused or distracted. Have I been “Nose Forward, Knees Forward?” Or have I allowed my ministry, my calling, to be distracted by the “Chitter-Chatter,” in what is arguably the greatest mission field in the nation?
I’m sure one could chastise me for “sinning by comparison” but these aren’t my comparisons. Looney’s point is clear that when Southern Baptists decide to put their minds, hands, time, and talents to the task at hand, we are an unstoppable, collective force for The Gospel. It makes sense how and why, on the national scene, we became and maintained our position as the largest denomination.
The “Present”
Looney pivots to his present day, extolling many other virtuous accomplishments for the state convention that, again, had only just passed its proverbial “teenage years” when he celebrated the “well trained, capable, and energetic [convention] staff in charge of various departments.” He highlighted the “100 missionaries to the various language groups and 25 associations,” as well as the “nearly [one] million dollars a year [given] to world missions through the Cooperative Program,” and the over 50 million dollars spent erecting buildings for worship – all of which he refers to as “”sufficiency’ of the present” (a whole article could probably be written on that phrase alone).
But it was Looney’s words to the future – words he rightly chose to pen as a prayer, for the days had not yet been accomplished – that cut through my Spirit. He did not parse or “go gentle” in his challenge for the California Southern Baptists still to come. And what a notion that as he prayed, he prayed for me, and you, and us.
Prayer excerpts for his view of the future, our present
“Lord, we thank you for the blessings of the past, but past blessings have gone with past necessities, and now we come before you, Lord, the same needy creatures we have always been.”
“We stand in great need when we look at the future, for instead of 7 million people as there were 22 years ago the number is more than twice that…” (In 2024 we are nearly 6 times that size.)
“As we look to the future, we dare not rest on our laurels of the past. There is higher ground ahead. Without doubt, the greatest plague among us is that vast army of Southern Baptists who live in the state but who make no contribution toward propagating the Gospel of Christ. Some of them will tell you what good workers they used to be…”
“If we were to contemplate the future with joy, we must be willing to accept and to participate in new and greater challenges. Churches accepting the challenge of establishing new missions will do more to guarantee their fellowship than anything else.”
Looney concludes by comparing California Southern Baptists to a pack of hunting dogs on a fox hunt. Recounting a memory from his childhood he closed with this analogy from a time when his Uncle Ed turned a pack of the finest fox hounds loose and they were all chasing the fox. He continued, “there was harmony and what the fox hunters called ‘heavenly music.’ When the fox was caught, there seemed to be a brief period of rejoicing, but mind you, if he didn’t get that pack of hounds after another fox real soon there was fighting among the canines. Need I say more?”
No, good sir. You need not say more to me. I see the charge you prayed over me.
Nose forward, knees forward.
